Thursday, July 23, 2015

I support Black Lives Matter. I believe and have written about on my blog in the past that we are living in a time where modern technology makes it impossible to hide police brutality itself a product of overpolicing, lingering racism, and a paranoid militarization of local police forces. Too much deference to cops and a reluctance to pursue criminal case against them is also part of the problem.

However, the protest against Bernie Sanders and Martin O'Malley at Net Roots Nation seemed silly and counterproductive. This especially true in both the attitude and treatment of Sanders who was an activist for civil rights in the 1960's marching with MLK and even getting arrested . While I am not a fan of Sanders due to his love of Israel and other hawkish foreign policy stances and his conservative views on gun control, he is unimpeachable on these issues.

The Black Lives Matter protesters that I saw interrupting and being rude to people whose support they should be attempting to coordinate with came across like spoiled,entitled children not serious activists interested in positive social change.

In addition, the response of the Black Lives organization to Hillary Clinton's polished, focus tested statement two days later was lacking. Hillary Clinton was not present at the net roots nation event but has a terrible record on these type of issues as I wrote about here http://rgdinmalaysia.blogspot.com/2015/06/hillary-clinton-and-confederate-flag.html While Sanders was marching for civil rights, Hillary was a Goldwater girl, supporting Barry Goldwater. However, the Clintons are the ultimate political opportunists. I fully expect by the time the first Democratic debate rolls around, Hillary will take a moment of silence at the beginning and stand with her fist in the air in a back power salute like the athletes at the 1968 Olympics.

If Black Lives Matter really wants to be take seriously, they should protest at Republican events as well as Ms. Clinton's campaign stops. After all, many of the roots of today's problem with overpolicing started in Bill Clinton's administration.